A report from the Georgia Straight in Canada. "A buyer is paying over $1,757 per square foot for a condo unit in Vancouver’s Olympic Village. That translates to $7.7 million for the 4,381-square-foot property. Based on the listing history recorded by fisherly.com, the three-bedroom, four-bath condo was previously on the market for $10,898,000. This listing was terminated on October 21, 2019. A subsequent listing for $8,998,000 was terminated on June 19, 2020. On the same day, the listing was renewed at $7,998,000. The waterfront condo sold 19 days later for $7.7 million."

The South West Londoner in the UK. "London’s rental prices are falling amidst reduced demand and an oversupply of properties, according to the latest data released by Rightmove. The total number of available rental properties is currently up 41% in London compared to this time last year. SpareRoom director Matt Hutchinson said: 'We’re starting to see the entire city becoming more affordable, which could spur a flurry of movement as people seek out cheaper rents than they currently have.'"

From Hungary Today. "As a result of the coronavirus epidemic and the imminent restriction of short-term apartment rentals, such as Airbnb, rents have fallen in Budapest this year, and the consolidation of the housing market ended a period of steep increases in residential property prices as well. The changes are well illustrated by the fact that a 50 square meter apartment in good condition in the inner districts, which previously cost HUF 150-160,000 (EUR 424-452) per month (not including utilities), now only costs around HUF 120-130,000 forints (EUR 339-367)."

"The coronavirus epidemic and the halt of tourism also decreased prices in the city center, namely in the so-called party district. The rent of many flats here slipped below the shocking limit of HUF 100,000, which was previously unthinkable. Before the epidemic, even a less-favored basement studio could have been rented out for HUF 100,000, and now furnished, renovated, small ground-floor apartments are offered for HUF 80,000. The decline is even greater for larger apartments."

"The real estate market is also showing a downturn, and potential buyers are currently waiting for a further fall in property prices."

From ABC News in Australia. "The number of empty rental homes in Sydney's CBD has jumped by 70 per cent since last year. Data from SQM Research shows in the CBD, 13.8 per cent of rental homes — or nearly 1,300 properties — were empty in June. Last year, it was 764. 'We've also seen a drop-off in demand from some of the younger people who might normally live in share houses and share apartments that have been hit particularly hard by the pandemic,' said chief economist at BIS Oxford Economics Sarah Hunter. 'Perhaps they are having to relocate back to their parents, so that demand has dried up.'"

"Another reason behind the increase in rental vacancies is due to a glut of new apartments hitting the market, Ms Hunter said. 'We knew that those completions were coming and they've come at the same time [as the pandemic] so, put all that together and the vacancy rate in the centre of town has really shot up.'"

The Sydney Morning Herald in Australia. "As Australia's two biggest states battle a coronavirus resurgence, senior bankers are facing up to a grim reality: the unprecedented government and bank-provided lifelines will not be enough to save everyone. This was expected but has now become more urgent as bank call centres contact hundreds of thousands of people who have put their loan payments on hold in the last few months as an emergency measure."

"National Australia Bank's group executive in charge of personal banking, Rachel Slade, says the lender is checking on about 10,000 borrowers with deferred loans every week, and most want to keep their payments paused for a further three months. About one in five are in better shape than expected and have resumed repayments. But a much smaller fraction are moving into hardship arrangements, which can involve restructuring loans, selling assets, or in some cases selling the property."

"'Of course, there is that recognition that there will be customers that won’t recover from this,' she says. 'We’ve added resourcing into the parts of the bank that deal with customers in hardship, and we’re working with customers on an individual basis to figure out when the right time is for them to make that shift. Because it’s not in our interest or their interest to keep them on a deferral if it’s clear to us and to them that they’re not going to come out the other side of it. We’re much better off moving to helping them work through other options.'"

"Jefferies banking analyst Brian Johnson says the market will not know the condition of banks' loan books until all the government support expires, and this will depend on the economy's ability to bounce back. 'A bridge to nowhere is an upward-sloping pirate’s plank,' he says."

The Wall Street Journal on China. "Rents in China’s big cities have been falling in recent weeks, a sign of economic uncertainty in China’s otherwise gravity-defying residential property market. 'Landlords have been forced to lower their rents, and there still aren’t that many tenants,' says Zhang Chaofeng, an agent at a Beijing branch of Lianjia, a brokerage company with thousands of offices across the country. Mr. Zhang estimates vacancy rates in central Beijing are now roughly three times as high as a year ago."

"The recent drop—the sharpest such decline in the past eight years—hints at the magnitude of the economic pain being felt in China’s cities. 'The deviation between the rent and home price indicates that there is a certain degree of a bubble in housing prices,' says Wang Ruochen, a researcher at the privately run E-House China R&D Institute."